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Infinity Developers are in plans to launch a high-rise apartment tower in Westlands that could rival Upperhill&rsquo;s 88-Nairobi project.

The West Riverside Tower will sit on a piece of land measuring approximately 0.5 acres at the heart of the Westlands business district, offering prime residential accommodation.

The company said on its website that the vision is &lsquo;to create a building that evokes emotion on sight and on entry; a building that exudes an impression of the urban lifestyle so that upon sight and entry it strikes thoughts of high-quality service and security.&rdquo;

The nearly 40-floor proposed development site is located along Ring Road Westlands, opposite the Delta Annex building.

&ldquo;As we peer into the future of the neighbourhood there is a case for more hip and urban accommodation. At the moment within this half kilometre radius we have brand name hotels, top-class business and residential accommodation and thereof the Nairobi skyscrapers within the Westlands District,&rdquo; says the company.

The <a href="https://www.infinitydevltd.com/projects/west-riverside-tower/">developer</a> has already published a change of use notice on the site that currently hosts a single dwelling unit under occupation by an NGO, inviting public participation.

Westlands is expected to have&nbsp;stable market sentiment conducive to growth as the node continues to be part of major infrastructural upgrades in recent years, the latest being the Nairobi Expressway.

Urban developers in Nairobi are warming up to the increase in infrastructure and taking strategic positions despite the recent market challenges with supply and demand in light of a fractured economic environment.

It is not clear when the project will begin. For now, urban and concrete enthusiasts remain skeptical as to whether the structure will materialize before the 2022 elections given Kenya&rsquo;s political fragility at certain seasons.

Infinity&nbsp;developers have been responsible for a number of developments in the city including Trident Grand Riverside, Clock Tower Suites and Lower Kabete Villas.. The company says it has operations in Nairobi, Somalia and Dubai.

Kenya’s hospitality sector has come face to face with the backlash from the influence of online accommodation listings like Airbnb and Booking.com on the industry.

The battle between the hospitality sector and tech enabled short-term rentals has been ongoing globally for a while and only recently locally. Still matters could come to head in the most undesirable fashion for the hotel owners, considering precedence from elsewhere in the world.

In recent years, online platforms have changed the rules of the game by allowing ordinary home owners to transform their houses into overnight accommodation outlets, eliminating the necessity for travelers and tourists to check into an expensive hotel room or lodging.

According to <a href="http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-06/11/c_138134189.htm">Xinhua</a>, Kenyan hotels have particularly had to contend with invasion from Airbnb, Booking.com and Alltherooms.com among others, who are ready at the hands of lodgers.

The use of theses online platforms has caught popularity especially in the major towns beginning with Nairobi and Mombasa.

Short-term rentals have prevailed because of the unconventional way in which it merges the interest of lodgers and hosts. For one thing it is cheaper than most hotels since the initial investment for the host is nothing compared to building a hotel. For the same money you’d spend in a hotel, one can get more room and better service, making it irresistibly flexible.

Faced with the prospects of this unforgiving duel, some hotel owners, have sought to battle it out through collaboration; using those platforms to market their services.

In almost all countries and locations where the tech wave has swept away a good share of the market share from hotel owners, hoteliers have always resorted to regulation and suits to stem influence of the Airbnb’s.

For instance, hoteliers and authorities in many cities globally have filed law suits against Airbnb in an effort to restrict short-term rentals from operating in those cities by citing infringement on zoning laws and negative impacts on housing affordability among other reasons.

Now hotel stakeholders in the country are pushing for the licensing of all players in the industry, which may require home owners to fork out fees and be tax ready among other costs otherwise hidden. All these, to level up the competition or gain the upper hand.

As such the landscape is unfolding in an interesting manner, worthy of attention by all with a stake in the industry, and prospective investors.

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Major insurance firms reported losses and impairments in 2018 due to poor performance in real estate and stock markets among other investments. Britam Holdings posted a KSh. 2.3bn loss last year which it has blamed on a tough operating environment, compounded by investments in cash-strapped firms.

Top of the list of Britam's non-performing real estate investments is Housing Finance, the struggling listed mortgage lender, in which Britam has an invested stake of 48.82% acquired after buying out Equity Bank's stake in 2014.

The investments conglomerate had bought the stake in the mortgage lender banking on “government plans to provide improved housing for citizens, the growth of the middle-income class and improved economic activities”.

However, the mortgage lender has struggled to make things work and its share price has since dropped to a 15-year low, leading the Britam to shed KSh. 4bn in paper gains.

The company has invested heavily in real estate over the past decade to diversify its portfolio and shield shareholders from stock market volatility. Last year Britam launched the landmark Britam Towers, a 200m commercial development in Nairobi's Upper Hill, coming into an oversupplied market.

Britam has accumulated a fairly large real estate portfolio including residential, commercial and retail with some inventory in the market and in the pipeline.

Another insurer, UAP Old Mutual posted a KSh. 518m loss, the first first in almost a decade. The firm has attributed the loss to bad investments, restructuring and regulatory changes. UAP has had to write-down valuations for its properties in Kenya and South Sudan.

“We have had to let go of accounts we couldn’t price properly and that has had an impact on the top line,” CEO Peter Mwangi told an investor briefing last week.

The company also lost KSh. 400m in bonds to ARM Cement, and deposits held in collapsed Tanzanian lender Bank M. UAP’s parent company has had to halt debt for equity swap that would have seen it increase its stake from 67% to 73.5% as a result of UAP’s impaired financial performance and written-down properties.

Other insurance firms whose profits have taken a hit include Sanlam and Kenya Re.

Read;

Insurance firms stumble following sluggish property markets, stocks

Registering property is one of the key procedures for transferring property from one party to another. Registration legally confers exclusive ownership, possession and rights in the property to the new owner from the seller or transferor and provides evidence of title to prevent unlawful disposal and facilitate transactions on the land.

Businesses and industries alike rely on this important process to acquire land for commercial purposes. As a result, the ease of transferring property is one of the metrics used to determine a nations ease of doing business.

African countries however, have often held the tail end ranks in the world ease of doing business report. One of the reasons for this is that transfer of property in most African countries is a tedious, some times expensive and bureaucratic process. According to the Centre for African Housing Finance (CAHF) annual housing yearbook, it takes as many as 230 days in some countries to register commercial property.

Read;<a href="https://estatecloud.co.ke/ministry-of-lands-to-close-nairobi-and-central-registries/">Ministry of lands to Close Registries</a>

The report, which compared the number of days it takes to register commercial property for African countries between 2012 and 2017, determined that Togo was the worst performer in terms of the ease of registering property. It takes about 230 days to register commercial property in the West African nation as of 2017, an improvement of just 15 days from 2012.

In Angola, the number of days to register property has remained the same since 2012 at 140 days, similar to Somalia. Another West African country, Benin, has also sidelined the need to reduce the number of days to register commercial property, retaining it at 120 days. Overall, it takes at least 50 days to register commercial property in 26 African countries.

Countries where it takes the shortest time register property include Sudan, Botswana and Rwanda where it takes 10 days and about 12 days respectively.

Most countries have improved since 2012 however, with Guinea-Bissau making the most improvement from 260 days five years ago to just 50 days in 2017. Senegal also made such improvements, reducing the number of days to register property from 175 to 75 days while Lesotho reduced the number of days from 100 to just 40 days.

In East Africa, Burundi reduced the number of days from 90 to 24, while Rwanda reduced the number from 48 to about 12 days. In Kenya, the number of days to register commercial property has been cut down from about 70 to 60.

According to the data, in most African countries have also reduced the cost to register financial property over the same period. As of 2017, Cameroon retained the highest cost to register commercial property which is 22% of property value similar to 2012. In most African countries, it costs between 10 to 15% of property value to register commercial property.

However, in countries such as Ghana, Rwanda, Sudan, Burundi, Malawi and others, it costs less than 5% of property value. In fact, in Rwanda it costs nothing to register property while in Egypt and Ghana it costs 1% and 2% respectively. Still in some countries such as South Sudan, Ethiopia and Kenya, the cost of registering commercial property has gone up.

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African countries reduce days and cost to register commercial property

Hotel industry faces stiff competition from short-term rentals

The county government of Kajiado has slashed land rates by 65 percent following a deadlock between the county government and land owners over rates especially in satellite towns.

Land owners had opposed the proposed rates citing what they felt as coercion by the county government. The governor earlier this year directed Lands and Urban Planning CEC Hamilton Parseina and Finance CEC Alais Kisota to review the land levies together with stake holders.

According to the new order, a parcel of land with annual rates equivalent to KES 10,000 will now be required to pay only KES 3,500 beginning February next year when the new rates will take effect.

Residents welcomed the move even as the country government hopes this will increase compliance.

Land rates one of the major sources of revenues for county governments. According to data from Nairobi county’s budget office, land rates was the <a style="color: #ff6600;" href="https://estatecloud.co.ke/land-rates-largest-source-of-county-revenue/">single largest contributor</a> to local revenue in the four-year period between 2014 and 2017. In total, land rates generated KES 10.27 Billion in the four years.

The move could make investment in the county more attractive compared to surrounding counties.

Read; <a style="color: #ff6600;" href="https://estatecloud.co.ke/property/gateway-mall-3-bedroom-plus-dsq-to-let/">Gateway mall 3-bedroom plus dsq to let</a>

The National Housing Corporation (NHC) advanced a total of 46 loans amounting to KSh. 105.2 million were to individuals in 16 counties in the 2017/18 financial year. This is according to the latest economic survey by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics.

The data shows that individuals in Murang’a and Machakos Counties received the highest number of loans from NHC, each getting eight loans while nearly nine out of the 25 counties surveyed received no loans from the body whose slogan is ‘Housing the Nation’.

The primary mandate of NHC is to play a principal role in the implementation of the Government’s Housing Policies and Programmes.

The survey also shows that approved government expenditure on housing increased four-fold or 74 per cent since 2014; from KSh. 7.39 billion to KSh. 28.96 billion in the 2018/2019 financial year according to data from the State Department for Housing and Urban Development.

However, actual expenditure stood at about 87 per cent on average over the previous two years and grew from KSh. 15.2 billion in 2016/17 to KSh. 16.1 billion in 2017/18.

In 2017/18, the actual expenditure as a percentage of budget estimate was 87.6 per cent. The approved expenditure on housing in 2018/19 was increased to KSh 28,956.2 million to finance housing flagship projects.

Read; <a style="color: #ff6600;" href="https://estatecloud.co.ke/private-developers-dominate-housing-supply-despite-rising-costs/">Private developers dominate housing supply despite rising costs</a>

NHC records low loan numbers amidst affordable housing agenda

National Mortgage facility for civil servants has offered loans to 391 workers from different ministries and local government authorities worth 4.5bn during the 2016/17 financial year.

This was stated in Dar es Salaam by the Director for Housing Section in the <a href="http://lands.go.tz/">Ministry of Lands</a>, Housing and Human settlement Development, Mr. Michael Mwalukasa, while speaking to reporters on the advancement made by the facility.

He said since the facility was founded 2,040 civil servants were helped among the 3,900 applications they have received.

Explaining further, he said when the facility was launched; their objective was to offer loans to 500 public servants annually on average of 3mil/- in each mortgage.

‘’The total cost of funds provided is 12bn/-,” he stated. Mr. Mwalukasa said the facility has made it possible for government officials to get houses in legally accepted regions.

“The facility to a larger degree has encouraged housing development in different districts and cities, the maximum sum of loans provided is 20mil/- given in two stages with regard to the aim of attaining it,” he said

The <a href="http://www.nhc.co.tz/en/">National Housing Corporation o</a>f Tanzania a leading real estate development and management firm authorized under the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Settlements Development has also launched a new system which lets its patrons to pay for the houses purchased while living in their own homes.

Known as the “Tenant Purchase Scheme”. It allows Tenants to purchase NHC houses directly through a long-standing payment plan, where the tenant pays a monthly payment for a period of ten years. With the house given over to client after completing all requirements. The patron is given their housing unit title deed after the final payment.

The main purpose of the Tenant Purchase Scheme is to offer a simple and lasting access to home ownership for institutions and households that are not otherwise capable of either raising sufficient funds for complete purchase of housing or who might not meet the criteria for traditional mortgage finance.

This tenant purchase scheme has been operational since November 1st 2016

Estate Cloud

Estate Cloud

Developer to Build Luxury Westlands Skyscraper

By Estate Cloud - over 2 years ago - Kenya

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